Special Forces Integration with Multinational Division-North in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Abstract
The American people expect the military to win future engagements with greater efficiency to reduce costs. Our National Military Strategy, Joint Vision 2010, and other keystone joint publications seek to answer their expectation by espousing 'jointness' - fighting as a fully interoperable and seamlessly integrated joint force. These publications envision achieving increased effectiveness by creating the best fit of available component forces to harmonize the unique and complementary strengths and capabilities of each of our Services. This monograph examines how well Special Forces and U.S. conventional ground forces in Bosnia satisfied the vision of 'jointness' during both Operations Joint Endeavor and Joint Guard. It adopts a methodology of examining these operations using two criteria that research revealed were common to the documents: service provision of effective component forces and efficient joint employment by the responsible commander. The corresponding measures of merit used to analyze operations are: presence of competent components, fit of forces, command relationships, mission direction, and mutual trust. After describing the joint and multinational environment in Bosnia, and Special Forces operations in the Multinational Division-North sector, the monograph systematically assesses the 'jointness' of Special Forces operations in the Multinational Division-North sector relative to the measures of merit. Research reveals overall success in operations but significant shortcomings in command relationships and mutual trust that improved only after months of turmoil. The monograph concludes that complicated and unclear command relationships caused poor mutual trust between Special Forces and conventional forces and degraded overall effectiveness.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 21, 1998
- Accession Number
- ADA357012
Entities
People
- Michael L. Findley
Organizations
- United States Army Command and General Staff College